This study surveyed 710 undergraduate students at METU about their use and perceptions of Open Educational Resources (OER) for physics laboratory experiments. 41% of students used the OER, primarily to prepare for experiments before laboratory sessions. 91.9% of students felt the OER positively contributed to their learning by helping them conduct effective experiments and better understand concepts. However, 59% did not use the OER, mainly due to a perceived lack of need. Students suggested improving the OER by including more detailed explanations and examples.
Use of OpenCourseWare from the Viewpoint of Undergraduate Students: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments
1. Use of OpenCourseWare from the Viewpoint
of Undergraduate Students: Case of OER for
Physics Laboratory Experiments
Nergis A. Gurel Koybasi, Omer Faruk Islim, Kursat Cagiltay and Rafet Cevik, METU
nergis@metu.edu.tr, islim@metu.edu.tr, kursat@metu.edu.tr, rafetce@metu.edu.tr
3. METU OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.metu.edu.tr)
Member of International and National OCW Consortiums.
The pioneer and most comprehensive OCW portal in Turkey since 2008.
With the voluntary contribution of instructors, the number of courses published
has reached to 110 by 2013.
Most of the courses are in English.
There are 28 courses and 6 resources in Turkish, some of which are translations
of courses of prestigious universities.
All educational resources are licensed with Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 3
4. METU OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.metu.edu.tr)
~ 90 000 unique visitors each year.
Although the countries of visitors vary from United States to Philippines, the
majority of them are from Turkey.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 4
5. METU OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.metu.edu.tr)
Instructional Technology Support Office (ITS) provides assistance to academic
staff for technology use and publishing of courses as OCW.
ITS sends announcements each academic semester.
Instructors who are willing to share their course materials contact ITS.
The scope of course contents depends on the instructor’s enthusiasm to share.
◦ At least syllabus and weekly schedule
◦ Not limited to lecture notes, assignments, additional resources and video lectures.
Video lectures are recorded by ITS.
After the approval of the instructor, courses are opened for public use.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 5
6. General Physics Laboratory Experiments
General Physics Laboratory is a part of General Physics courses
◦ Two-semester courses
◦ Mandatory for majority of undergraduate students in METU
Students are obliged to attend laboratory sessions and conduct 5 experiments.
For the effectiveness, preparedness of students is the key factor.
Department of Physics and ITS collaborated to design and develop video
recordings of experiments
◦ To encourage students to review experiments before laboratory sessions
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 6
7. General Physics Laboratory Experiments
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 7
Registered students of General
Physics courses were informed by
teaching assistants and flyers.
OER are suggested as
complementary materials.
The usage is not a requirement of
course completion rather.
8. General Physics Laboratory Experiments
To increase the number audiences who may benefit, videos were dubbed in
Turkish and English.
Turkish version:
◦ has been online since October 2011
◦ 41193 activities of guest users were logged between March 2012 and November 2013
English version:
◦ has been available since February 2012
◦ 23675 activities of guest users were logged between March 2012 and November 2013
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 8
9. Aim of the Study
The research on OER and OCW has focused on benefits and challenges for using
the resources as well as preparing them.
This study aims to determine:
◦ the attitudes of undergraduate students toward using General Physics Laboratory OER
◦ how they perceive the contribution of using the OER on the outcomes of the course.
In addition, suggestions of students for improvement of the resources are
introduced.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 9
10. Methods:
Participants
This study was conducted in spring semester of 2012 – 2013 academic year.
710 undergraduate students enrolled in General Physics course replied to a
paper-based survey.
◦ 296 female and 411 male
Nearly all (97.7%) of the participants were freshmen
◦ General Physics is a must course in first-year curriculum.
Majority (74.5%) of the participants were students of Faculty of Engineering.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 10
11. Methods:
Data Collection and Analysis
A printed survey administered at the end of the spring semester.
The survey consisted of 18 questions:
◦ 8 questions: descriptive information about students
◦ 10 questions: usage and perceptions of students
15 multiple choice questions were quantitatively analyzed.
3 open-ended questions qualitatively analyzed.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 11
12. Results:
OER Awareness and Source of Awareness
Source of
Information
Frequency Percent
Teaching Assistants 263 37.0
Flyers 165 23.2
Peers 141 19.9
Instructor 49 6.9
Other 28 3.9
Media 9 1.3
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 12
76.2% of participants were aware
of OER.
Others have not heard of OER.
Teaching assistants, flyers and
peers were the most frequent
sources of information.
23 participants discovered the
resources by themselves by
◦ online search
◦ social network sites
◦ during surfing OCW portal.
13. Results:
OER Usage, Frequency and Purpose of Usage
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 13
Used
41%
Not Used
59%
For each
session
41%
For some
sessions
50%
For a few
sessions
9%
Before sessions
90%
After
sessions
2%
Both before
and after
8%
14. Results:
OER Usage, Frequency and Purpose of Usage
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 14
Reasons of Usage Frequency Percent
Valid
Percent
Readiness for
experiments
244 34.4 90.4
Both readiness and
review
14 2.0 5.2
Review of
experiments
9 1.3 3.3
Other 3 .4 1.1
Total 270 38.0 100.0
15. Results:
Contribution of OER
272 participants responded educational contribution of OER.
91.9% of them affirmed the positive contribution.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 15
Contribution of OER Frequency Percent
Assisted for effective
experiments
155 21.8
Enabled comprehension 151 21.3
Reduced the time
required
117 16.5
Reduced number of
questions
75 10.6
Improved grade 41 5.8
Other 3 .4
16. Results:
Advantages of OER
109 participants noted advantages of OER.
The most common theme mentioned by participants was that OER enabled the
preparedness to experiments.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 16
Advantage of OER Frequency
Enabled the preparedness to
experiments
64
Enabled comprehension 39
Reduced the time required 21
Increased effectiveness 17
Enabled safer experiments 3
Improved grade 2
Increased memorability 1
17. Results:
Reasons of OER Not Being Effective
16 participants responded.
The common topic was the content of video materials:
◦ shallow
◦ focusing on how to conduct experiment without pointing the aim of it
◦ not informative enough
The narration of the experiments is thought to be fast, fuzzy, ineffective and
insignificant.
Supportive materials are not needed.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 17
18. Results:
Reasons for Not to Use OER
288 participants responded.
The most common topic was lack of need for the resources.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 18
Reasons for Neglect Frequency Percent
Lack of need 103 14.5
Not being informed 88 12.4
Shortness of time 45 6.3
Satisfactory resources 19 2.7
Indifference to course 13 1.8
Unattractiveness 13 1.8
Other 4 .6
Use of other resources 2 .3
Did not come to mind 1 .1
19. Results:
Improvement Suggestions
43 participants responded.
The main theme was about the content of the resources:
◦ include more details such as the goals and results of experiments
More resources need to be added explaining laboratory reports and
calculations.
Examples of quizzes could be provided.
Interactive resources like report preparing could help improvement of OER.
Enhancement of audio and visual quality.
Resources should be up to date.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 19
20. Discussion
Students who used OER as a complementary material of a traditional course, observed
the benefits and pointed out contributions to their learning process.
OER facilitates preparedness for the course.
To increase the benefit of OER providing only video recordings seems insufficient:
◦ other course materials covered in the curriculum of the course should also be presented.
It is important to enrich the available educational materials included in OER.
To fulfill the user expectations, high quality audio and visual representations needs to
be provided.
In case of the students who did not used OER, the main problem was the sense of lack
of need:
◦ benefits of usage needs to be more observable.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 20
21. Limitations and Future Study
This study will be replicated after implementation of suggestions in order to
examine the change in the attitudes of the students.
Moreover, the observations provided by educators would be valuable.
Though reaching the target population would be troublesome, to understand
the contributions of OER, self-learners and students who utilize the materials for
educational purpose could be also considered as potential participants.
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 21
22. Questions / Comments
Nergis A. Gurel Koybasi
nergis@metu.edu.tr
METU OCW
http://ocw.metu.edu.tr
4/23/2014 METU OCW: Case of OER for Physics Laboratory Experiments 22